detail from The Venue, oil on canvas, 48x60”, 2025 (…blow it on out, girl)
I can’t tell you how much of a difference that dark colored hand towel made in my life. One hundred times I walked up the steep stairs to my lofted bedroom with a wet face and eyes stinging because I didn’t have a hand towel in the bathroom to dry my face. Now that I finally have one, I really feel like I’ve made it in this world. I feel sparks of joy and accomplishment every time I dry off my face. One of my favorite lofted bedroom activities is organizing my intimate drawer. I light a candle, eat chocolate, drink hot tea, put on a movie, and dig in. This drawer is a reflection of my state of mind. I have so much to give, so many silky beige and pinks. I read in an artist’s self help book that you should care for yourself like you would care for a three year old. Would you let your three year old have hole-y underwear? No!
Loretta in Arkansas (wink wink) has a lot of lace-y lingerie that she bought, just to find they are so uncomfortable that she won’t wear them. For a month and a half, she was dating her downstairs neighbor, Elon. It was convenient and fun. Every time she descended the stairs to his apartment she thought, “Finally, I can wear that lace-y lingerie, because they won’t be on my body for more than 10 minutes. I can handle that.” But Elon stopped calling because she doesn’t practice his religion. “How can religion matter more to a man than lace-y lingerie?” She scratches her head. His window is street level, next to the stoop. “Don’t shit where you eat” crosses her mind every time she enters or exits her building. But the situation does inspire her to look incredibly hot every day, just in case they bump into each other.
My classmate Frangelica and I went to the premiere and Q&A of Crispin Glover’s new film No! You’re Wrong! Or Spooky Action at a Distance. I bought her ticket in exchange for a hair cut in my studio and she did a great job. Frangelica is also dating someone who is devoutly religious, and he questions if they are a good fit because she does not practice his faith. Crispin’s film is a beautiful, dark invented world of generational karmic ties with a frustrating plot that echoes the challenging dynamics he had with his father. It reminds me of the screenplay that I’ve been tweaking for years; a southern gothic beach drama. In my screenplay, an early 30’s house wife and her three year old meet a female marine biologist on the beach (behind her and her husband’s cottage) who is doing field research about storm erosion. The house wife’s husband is a carpenter who falls off a hotel roof, becoming addicted to pain meds. The wife masturbates with the test tube that the female marine biologist gave her three year old when they met that time on the beach. She falls in love with the marine biologist. She and her three year old move to wherever the marine biologist’s research takes her. She becomes an intellectually stimulated lesbian in a relationship that makes her feel seen and valued.
Trey is the bouncer who works outside The Three Diamond Door. I know him from the DRTY SMMR days. I stop and talk to him on my walk home from the subway. I usually have cherries in my purse. We catch up and spit out the pits. He likes to cook complex soup recipes, is starting a pop up food business, and really loves his new girlfriend.
Raymond works the front door reception at my school. I always felt like I cut our conversations short because I have to sign in and then leave the reception area to go upstairs. One day I brought my drawing supplies and sat on the floor next to him in the lobby so I could hear him out to the fullest. Turns out, 10 minutes is his ideal speaking length, and we were in comfortable silence for the following 45 minutes.
The psychic’s name is Penelope. She sits outside with a crystal ball and deck of cards on a folding table. I invited her to our thesis show opening in May as a way to break the ice, but she still asks me to have a psychic reading every time I walk past her to my daily lunch spot. I walk on the other side of the street now. I don’t want to know my future.
After a nice day with Alex in Chinatown, it was 10:30pm and I was on the fence about going to the midnight showing of Querelle, at IFC. It is my top 3 favorite films, but I would need to kill one and a half hours, and was pretty tired. I stopped by the ticket window since it is right next to the West 4th subway stop that I would take home. I thought for sure tickets would be sold out anyway. The ticket window person was ecstatic that I inquired about Querelle because it was his staff pick! I would’ve felt so guilty if I declined. He offered for me to “hang out upstairs” to kill time. I bought the ticket from his bubbly smiling kind sweet joyous innocent vulnerable British face and walked around for an hour instead of sitting upstairs. The movie was incredible for all four of us in the theater.
My stomach was churning all evening because I didn’t really want to go to see Jennifer’s band play. The people there are nice and I love her music but I didn’t really want to engage in that way. Isabel came over to rehearse harmonies, and invited me to see a free screening of Todd Solondz’s “Happiness” in the neighborhood that night, at the same time my friend’s band would go on. While Isabel was in the bathroom, I contemplated my choices. Isabel returned.
“I am going to see Happiness with you tonight!” I blurted out as if it was my first audible sound after being trapped in a snowstorm.
Immediate relief. My stomach felt great and insatiably hungry. We grabbed burgers on the way to the screening and had the best time watching the awkward characters make us feel excruciatingly uncomfortable. Sharing that experience on the big screen with a group of people is a celebration of life. I’m pretty sure Johnny Knoxville was in attendance.
Crystal and I went to her friend Rafael’s art opening straight from my charcoal figure drawing class. While looking at the artwork, moving through the crowded gallery and drinking a negroni, I bumped into a man who noticed my charcoal embedded fingernails. He bent over, “Are you a charcoal wench?” “Everyday.” I said. I felt really seen. We kept at it for several minutes. When he had to leave, I asked if we could exchange instagrams. He leaned over inquisitively and whispered, “Are you white trash?” He gave me his insta handle but I didn’t have cell service. By the time I got home to my wifi, the name had disappeared from my phone. I remembered his name was Devin. I asked Crystal if she could give Rafael my info for Devin. A week went by and I didn’t hear anything. Thankfully, we ran into Rafael at another opening. “Oh, you’re the one. Devin has been asking all about you. I asked Crystal to give you his number.” “Oh, I didn’t seem to get it.” I said. “Could you send it to me right now?” Devin and I are planning to go to The Frick when his Christmas window display planning slows down.
A man named Noey has been painting a mural on the restaurant doorway down the block for the last few weekends. One side of the doorway is painted a church, and the other side are painted juice bottles. I stop to look and he asks me what I think,
“The arch shapes of the church and juice bottles mirror each other.” I tell him.
He looks at me, looks at the mural, and says thank you. I don’t linger. I see him the next weekend, still at it, and again we chat. I tell him how awesome I think the vibrating edge between the complimentary colors are, that they are activating the illusion of depth between the church and sky. He says thank you and I leave quickly.
My career advisor called me on Sunday evening to discuss my first draft. His first sound on the phone was a long, strained growly groan. I giggled in response. “What, are you on laughing gas or something?” He asked grouchily. He ended our hour-long conversation by telling me which bands I should listen to, which is irrelevant and tiring, but still I listened patiently, politely. The moral of this story is:
“You should” means “I am right” and negates the agency of the other party to think for themselves. Men do this to women a lot. Those in a position of authority in the arts like to exploit the time of artists.
”
Lita is the nude model for my figure painting class and we became real friends. I was class monitor, meaning it was my job to time the poses and breaks, and to make sure the models are comfortable with enough cushioning under their bodies and that the temperature of the room is good for them to be naked for long periods of time. I am the intermediary between the students and the model, if they need the model to adjust their position and so on. After the modeling session was over, I checked in on Lita because one student is a psycho bitch. “Oh, I know,” she said. “She’s a psycho bitch.” “Cool!” I said. “Want to grab a coffee?” We sat in Washington square park sipping our coffee in a sunny spot. She spoke of the wide flat horizon of the ocean where she grew up, and of her time as a professional ballerina. She invited me to see her perform Burlesque at Madame X. I watched her transform from a completely believable silent film vamp starlet to a spider slut prancing in all fours to the theme song of The Nightmare Before Christmas.
I left my rehearsal space to buy refreshments at the deli across the street. When paying for my coconut water and peanuts, a man walked up to the woman at the counter holding two handfuls of small tomatoes. He was beaming with love for this woman as he handed them to her over the counter. “Is that your payment?” I chuckled. She laughed and said, “Yes, you want some?” She handed me two tomatoes. I wondered if this was meant as a slight to his advances, to give them away to a stranger. I studied his face to detect a response. He held his countenance. I took the tomatoes and ate them for lunch the next day.
I hadn’t seen Wiley in person in 10 years. He is a touring musician from Nashville. This July, when I was in a desert artist residency in Terlingua, TX, I was looking up a Merle Haggard song, and the first hit on spotify was a cover of it by Wiley’s band. I texted him how crazy that was. His band was playing in New York this past weekend. I confirmed I would go. He was excited to see me. I did not go because I was depressed and tired. He texted me the day after the show to meet up. He was not mad or disappointed that I didn’t go. Guys can be oddly mature sometimes. We met for a drink at The Three Diamond Door. I said what’s up to Trey, **who was surprised to see the change in our routine**. Wiley now lives in in a house in Bibsby with his painter/jewelrist girlfriend. I hinted that Mark Knopfler’s guitar playing is REALLY GOOD, and Wiley should fix up that RV in his backyard, and practice guitar in it for 6 hours a day, to carry the Mark Knopfler torch and really show up on the Stratocaster. I wonder if his girlfriend tells him the hard truth like that.
Johnny Walker, the 85 year old abstract expressionist painter from Birmingham, UK, gave each of us in the second year MFA program a 20 minute solo studio visit. For the visit, I wore a rose red silk gown with a long burnt orange jacket, burnt sienna blouse, brown tights and red shoes. He noted the color of my outfit and my painting palette are very forward, but in my paintings, the color ducks around and leaves you. He would tell his female students at Yale to paint with the colors they wear when they go out on a Saturday night and feel their best. He asked what painting I’ve been looking at. I said I started working one day a week in the studio of the recently passed sculptor Joel Shapiro, and that the environment of his working place has really affected me, especially the energy and space in his drawings. Johnny Walker paused, looked up, and got misty eyed. He told me of their group of friends who would go fishing in the Catskills when they were in their 20’s. “A group of 6 of us. Richard Serra, Joel, me and…” He told me about the time Joel fell into the river and they had to buy him new clothes at a convenience store, that Joel didn’t catch any fish that day. I was supposed to be timing my studio visit, but I couldn’t stop this man from reminiscing about his friend.
I arrived at the artist lecture two minutes late and the only available seats were in the reserved section. Jacob, the exhibitions and public programs officer, waved me “the okay” to sit there, amongst a gaggle of advanced age celebrated female artists. I was wearing an elegant assemblage of white and pale pinks from head to toe. I settled in next to a woman who was also wearing an elegant assemblage of white and pale pinks, except her HAIR was also white! “LOOK. AT. US.” I said, beaming with satisfaction. She looked up from her phone dismissively, “yeah… you’re wearing pink…” A few minutes later, she held her phone two inches from my face. “It’s 5 minutes past. WHY is this running late? I HATE it when things start late.” “Okay, so she does like me,” I thought. Just then, a young man scooted into the reserved section in the row behind us, knocking her white puffer vest on the floor. “Here you are.” he said. “So sorry that fell.” “You shouldn’t have touched it!” She snapped. “Oh! I’m sorry I didn’t mean to step on your-” “Oh! You stepped on it! Great!” She said. The lecture began. Five minutes in, she was yawning incredibly loud. To her benefit, it was a one dimensional discussion about painting that felt like a Hallmark Thank You card to art institutions. I couldn’t wait for it to end, so I could hear her bitch about it. That was the only thing keeping me awake in the dark, warm room. After ten minutes of pained yawns brightening my experience, she shot me a look that basically said, “I’m getting the fuck out of here. Move your legs so I can pass.” She got up and left. Listlessly, I sank into my chair, listening to another 45 minutes of nothing, alone in the dark. The reception after was chill. AJ arranged all the finger foods in circles like the moon that the lecturing artist paints obsessively every night as an unconscious escape from her inevitable death. I ate a lot of it, wondering what the white and pink woman would have said about it all. Maybe she doesn’t fear death and has no time for that kind of lalligagging. But then, why did she even come to the lecture? Would I rather be the oblivious, obsessive moon painter, or the overly-aware thus isolating mega bitch? No, I wish I had a three decade long obsession. Never questioning, just following.
Dear Vincent Gallo,
I am writing this email as a cathartic release without want or expectation of reply.
I know that filming Brown Bunny was very isolating for you. Yesterday, I painted out the figures in my 36x48” oil painting, removing any recognizable imagery. As the last figure disappeared into pure color and shape, I felt a tingling sensation in the back of my head for 5 seconds. The next day, I had a panic attack and rushed out of the room of my peers. I don’t know what is happening to me. I only feel content when I sleep and dream. My dreams are optimistic, positive and fantastical rewrites of my waking life. That my x-lover visited my hometown with me, and his insight into my development turned him around to being kind and loving towards me. We stood in the parking lot of the kitschy seaside motel as a grey ocean wind chilled our bones. We were packing up our stuff to drive back to NY. “Your Dad is like that ocean” he said with a perceptive, poetic shiver. Or that I finally made a painting so mysteriously emotive and with such formal prowess that he was again enamored by me, but permanently.
My painting process has evolved as such: I paint a complex scene of female musicians in a music venue, with amps, audience, etc. Feeling overwhelming disdain at my illustrative figuration, despite all attempts to do otherwise, I flip the painting upside down, removing recognizable imagery, but providing a new visual structure to follow. I then paint on top of it with great fervor, only responding with color and gesture, and eventually sculpting formal ideas from that. The remnants and history of the upside down image create mystery, as if through unexplained and unintentional areas that my hand didn’t consciously do. This process is a manifestation of finding freedom in an act of self-destruction due to my present state of low self worth.
Attached is a photo of me that you request of all your “born female” writers to include. It was from this Summer when I was playing bass for my friend’s band.
P.S. I do like your music but Kat says listing your sperm for sale on your website for 1 million dollars is problematic and that I shouldn’t send this email.
Sincerely,
Holly Overton
I saw a man on the L train who my brain registered as, “Ted Bundy handsome”. Still unpacking that. I exited the train and walked through Maria Hernandez Park a few yards behind a woman with long, thick shine-y black hair wearing an ankle length black wool coat. Although it was dark, she somehow was reading a book while she walked. With slow, even strides, her silhouette glided through the glowing smoke of the big chicken grills at the volleyball games. The scene reminded me of John Carpenter’s The Fog, so I put that on while I ate dinner. When it was time to sleep, I laid in bed with the window open, and heard the clippity clop of high heels echo past, just like the bizarre sound design of Carnival of Souls. I really can’t sleep tonight, for I love life so much. I hear a group of friends walking by and laughing.
Larissa says I flirt with everyone. But that is not it at all. I like making people laugh, so I quickly observe or sense something from them that I react to or comment on that could make them smile. This attention is definitely not directed in any greater frequency to those I would find attractive. Larissa texted me all the ways she enjoys spending time with her boyfriend on the weekend with candles, incense, the crisp morning air, and making soup all day. I feel bad for her. She has no agency over her time.
The painter Silas Borsos visited my studio. I am inspired by his character. I am having a really hard time in the studio. His was the first real studio visit I believe I have ever received outside of the school paradigm. I understand what it means now. I hope my wisdom will grow so that I too may be of service to other artists in need. He arrived at 4:00 and stayed as the sunlight gradually and slowly disappeared. He did an archeological dig of my mind. His insight is was to narrow down to a few avenues of exploration. I heave a sigh of relief and cry a tear of gratitude, for a lifetime of searching suits my character more than a five month prep for a thesis show. It takes time and work for the dust to settle.
The last two times I went to a hair dresser for a cut, they said my hair was so pretty that I shouldn’t cut it. What honesty. Would a car mechanic say anything like that? I do look really hot in this period of my life. It’s like my seven year cells regenerated into the sexy ones. My face is romantically gaunt with time, my figure settling in well. I love getting dressed in the mirror while dancing to the slow twangs of BB King. It takes me a long time to coordinate my monochromatic colors from head to toe, and it’s fun. Greta said I am like a “sexy crayon.” I’m not romantically involved with anyone, so no one really knows about this but me.
Intellectual pursuit is so overwhelmingly humbling. Moments of understanding bring you to your knees, bring you to tears. Magnify the vastness of past and future knowledge. Depression from my external factors… where does that fit in? I have space to cry from a broken heart and loss of loved ones. That’s universal. I have space to cry because abstraction is blowing up my world and nothing I’ve painted has felt good for two months. That is privileged? It is my choice to throw caution to the wind and give my whole being to this search. But as a pleasant looking white person, I have the choice to reject financial security and middle class potential for this search. But better me than a sociopath without empathy?
No posts
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.